Malignant cancerous growths, due to their unique characteristics, pose serious challenges for modern medicine. These characteristics include uncontrollable cell proliferation resulting in unregulated growth of malignant tissue, an ability to invade local and even remote tissues, lack of differentiation, lack of detectable symptoms and most significantly, the lack of effective therapy and prevention.
Cancer can develop in any tissue of any organ at any age. The etiology of cancer is not clearly defined but mechanisms such as genetic susceptibility, chromosome breakage disorders, viruses, environmental factors and immunologic disorders have all been linked to a malignant cell growth and transformation.
Antineoplastic chemotherapy currently encompasses several groups of drugs including alkylating agents, purine antagonists and antitumor antibiotics. Alkylating agents alkylate cell proteins and nucleic acids preventing cell replication, disrupting cellular metabolism and eventually leading to cell death. Typical alkylating agents are nitrogen mustard, cyclophosphamide and chlorambucil. Toxicities associated with alkylating agents treatment include nausea, vomiting, alopecia, hemorrhagic cystitis, pulmonary fibrosis and an increased risk of developing acute leukemia.
Purine, pyrimidine and folate antagonists are cell cycle and phase specific and, in order to promote an anti-tumor effect, they require cells to be in the cell replication cycle and in the DNA synthesis phase of replication. The purine antagonists such as 6-mercaptopurine or 6-thioguanidine inhibit de novo purine synthesis and interconversion of purines. The pyrimidine antagonists, such as cytarabine, 5-fluorouracil or floxuridine, inhibit DNA synthesis by inhibiting deoxycytidylate kinase and DNA polymerase.
Folate antagonists, e.g., methotrexates, bind tightly with the intracellular enzyme dihydrofolate reductase ultimately leading to cell death resulting from an inability to synthesize pyrimidines. Toxicities associated with the use of these compounds include alopecia, myelosuppression, vomiting, nausea, and cerebellar ataxia, among others.
Plant alkaloids such as vincristine, vinblastine or podophyllotoxins etoposide and teniposide generally inhibit mitosis and DNA synthesis and RNA dependent protein synthesis. Toxicities of these drugs are similar to those described above and include myopathy, myelosuppression, peripheral neuropathy, vomiting, nausea and alopecia.
Antitumor antibiotics such as doxorubicin, daunorubicin and actinomycin act as intercalators of DNA, preventing cell replication, inhibiting synthesis of DNA-dependent RNA and inhibiting DNA polymerase. Bleomycin causes scission of DNA and mitomycin acts as inhibitor of DNA synthesis by bifunctional alkylation. Toxicities of these antibiotics are numerous and severe and include necrosis, myelosuppression, anaphylactic reactions, anorexia, dose-dependent cardiotoxicity and pulmonary fibrosis.
Other compounds used for chemotherapeutical treatment of cancer are inorganic ions such as cisplatin, biologic response modifiers such as interferon, enzymes and hormones. All these compounds, similarly to those mentioned above, are accompanied by toxic adverse reactions.
Accordingly, it would be extremely advantageous to provide safe and non-toxic chemotherapeutic compositions which would effectively inhibit and/or suppress tumor cell proliferation and/or neoplastic growth. Furthermore, it would be extremely advantageous to provide safe, effective and non-toxic chemotherapeutic compositions that are easy to administer.
The identification of safe, effective, non-toxic, and orally administrable organic compounds capable of depressing or regressing malignant tumor growth in mammals and the use of such compounds to treat cancer is therefore desirable and the object of this invention.